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freedom stories – Eoghan

I love this passage from Mark chapter four. There’s just something about this ‘Sunday school classic’ that has always caught my attention, because I think there’s a lot more going on here than at first meets the eye. Beneath all of the moving parts on the surface of the story, the wind, the waves, the journey to the other side, the disciple’s loss of perspective, something else is going on.

At its very core this text shows us two things. Firstly it shows us something about Jesus and in doing that it shows us something about how we are invited to imagine life. Whatever we understand about this text, it’s clear that Mark wants us to see Jesus. But not in an abstract sense, Jesus the idea, Mark wants us to see Jesus in the flesh, because that’s the beating heart of the Christian message, that: God came in the flesh. Jesus is more than an idea. Jesus is our model for what human life looks like. A truly human life will always be Jesus shaped. This is hugely significant for us as disciples in terms of what we understand it means to be free, or to live freely.

Jesus and the Disciples were in the same place at the same time, suffering in the same kind of way, faced with the same kind of danger, but something is different. What is it? What do we see if we look past the surface of the story? I think Mark wants us to sit up and to take notice of the difference between the way in which Jesus was present in the boat and how the disciples were in that moment. See how the text finishes in verse 41 with the question ‘Who is this?’ Mark has us exactly where he wants us, with Jesus at the centre. If we stick to a surface reading of the text we might find ourselves left with a picture of Jesus where he needs to be pulled reluctantly from a nap, indifferent to the situation around him. But I think there’s far more going on here.

This isn’t just a gale like the kind of weather we’ve had in Dublin throughout winter this year. Take another look at the text, verse 37 tells us that the waves and breakers were beginning to fill the boat. The boat was starting to break apart. This is not a picture of the kind of setting most conducive to sleep. So what else might Mark be trying to show us? What if Jesus’ actions here are a picture for us of the shape of life we’re invited to adopt in our own lives as disciples. Where we’re present in the boat of life, storms and all, but free. Free enough to be at peace. Jesus’ actions here call us into a lifestyle rooted in relationship with the Father, lived out of rest not fear.